Previews

Sonic the Hedgehog

Spiffy:

A return to the series' roots; incredible sense of speed; could put Sonic firmly back on the map.

Iffy:

Still relatively early; plenty of tweaking and game balance issues to iron out; only saw one level.

This year brings the 15th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog hitting the Sega Genesis. Since then, there have been countless sequels and spin-offs -- some hitting the mark and others falling way off target. Whether you're a fan of Sonic or not, there's no denying the raw power of the franchise, and it's with that in mind that Sega is prepping to reintroduce the little blue mammal to the PS3 and 360 next-gen systems.

I was recently treated to a demo of Sonic the Hedgehog running on 360 debug hardware at Sega's headquarters, and I walked away with a sense of hope that the game will essentially be heading back to its roots. It's always been about over-the-top speed, furious pacing and stunning visuals, and it looks like this new incarnation will strike a chord with longtime fans of Sonic and potentially new gamers alike.

For the first time in the series' history, Sonic will exist in a human-oriented gameplay world. As such, the characters look and feel more grown-up, including a more ominous looking Dr. Eggman. The details surrounding the story are being kept tightly under wraps for now, although we do know that the action takes place in the maritime capital of Solieanna which is a huge sprawling metropolis surrounded by ocean.

It appears as though old Eggman is up to his usual nefarious antics and has kidnapped a cute little princess from the city. It's up to our guy Sonic to save the day and rescue her, but there's one small catch. Sonic is being stalked by a mysterious unknown entity who refers to our hero as the Iblis Trigger. What this moniker means remains unknown at this time, but it suggests that Sonic's presence is part of a much bigger plot than initially thought.

During the demo, I was able to see the Kingdom Valley stage running on the 360. While is was obvious that there were still a lot of tweaking and game balancing issues to be fixed, the general feeling was that of a much larger scale Sonic game. The level looked huge and gave a sense of size unseen before in the other games in the series. Back in full effect were the sprint pads, destructible crates, mind-bending jump pads, and of course the legions of collectable golden rings.